Nicosia, Cyprus. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will begin a two-day visit to Cyprus on Tuesday, holding separate and joint meetings with President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman. The United Nations has indicated that Guterres will seek concrete results before moving towards an informal five-party conference.
Meeting schedule
Guterres’ first meeting is scheduled to take place at the Presidential Palace with Christodoulides on Tuesday morning. He will then meet Erhurman at his office in the north.
During the afternoon, the Secretary-General will meet the Committee for Missing Persons, the negotiators and the heads of the technical committees. He will host a dinner for the two leaders in the evening.
On Wednesday morning, Guterres will meet Christodoulides and Erhurman together. It will be his first joint meeting with the two leaders.
His visit will conclude with a 30-minute news conference after the leaders’ meeting.
First visit in 16 years
The visit will be the first by a UN Secretary-General to Cyprus in 16 years. The last UN Secretary-General to visit was Ban Ki-moon in 2010.
Ban’s meeting with then Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat at his office in the north prompted criticism from Greek Cypriot media and political parties, which raised concerns about the status of the Turkish Cypriot administration. The UN has stated that Guterres’ separate meetings on Tuesday will also take place at the offices of each leader.
Previous efforts
Guterres last met the two sides’ leaders in July 2025 in New York, when Ersin Tatar was Turkish Cypriot leader. Earlier UN-led efforts produced negotiations under Mustafa Akinci, which ended with the collapse of talks at Crans Montana in 2017, despite Guterres’ involvement.
His personal envoy, Maria Angela Holguin, completed an initial mission without achieving progress, while a broader informal meeting involving the guarantor powers did not lead to an agreement. The two leaders have also not reached an agreement on opening another crossing point, despite months of discussions.
The Cyprus government spokesman described Guterres’ visit as “very significant” and said the Secretary-General would seek to create conditions for an expanded informal conference on Cyprus.